Drug addiction and alcohol is more serious personal, social and economic problems. Particularly in view of the current opioid epidemic, addictive opioid drugs such as heroin, morphine, oxycontin, methadone, buprenorphine, fentanyl, etc., as well as addictive non-opioid drugs including cocaine, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, methamphetamine, are abused in the United States at record rates. Addiction to SOAs exacts a terrible price in suffering, overdoses, and a high financial cost, to society as a whole.
Among all SOAs, alcohol addiction is the number one killer, being responsible for 88,000 deaths per year in the United States. According to the National Institutes of Health; all other drugs (illicit and prescription) combined resulted in 64,000 overdose deaths per year in the U.S. in 2017.
Vast sums of money are spent in treatment and rehabilitation programs in an effort to treat drug addiction and alcoholism and return the addict to health. As illicit drugs tend to be expensive, it is not uncommon for an addict to engage in criminal enterprises, such as robbery or theft, to obtain the money necessary to support his or her drug habits. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism the estimated annual cost of alcohol abuse alone in the U.S. as of 2010 was $249 billion dollars. When the costs of drug abuse (including tobacco and prescription drug misuse) are included, the total annual economic cost of drug and alcohol abuse increased to more than $750 billion dollars per year.
Current approaches to heroin and other opioid addiction include “maintenance” programs using opioid heroin analogs such as methadone and buprenorphine as a substitute for the illicit narcotic, such as heroin. Under such maintenance programs, the patient continues to be addicted to the analog (which usually less potent as an intoxicant than the SOA) until or unless the patient wishes to taper off the analog. These analog compounds may be combined with the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone (sold under the trade name Narcan®) to prevent misuse of the “substitute”. Thus, these maintenance methods are self-defeating because methadone and buprenorphine, while less intoxicating on a molar basis than heroin, are themselves addicting. Such maintenance methods therefore merely substitute an illegal form of drug addiction for an other , legal form; the patient remains addicted to drugs. Moreover, the analogs themselves may be abused or combined with other drugs, resulting in overdose and death. In 2004 methadone contributed to 3,849 deaths in 2004; in most cases in combination with other drugs, especially benzodiazapines.
An other approach to opioid addiction is “cold turkey” withdrawal, where the addict refrains from ingesting the SOA. This may be done voluntarily, but is more often that the patient is either physically restrained from using the drug, or placed within a drug rehabilitation facility as a condition of probation or parole. Withdrawal from opiates is characterized by severe muscle spasms, chills, lacrimation, depression, anxiety, digestive problems, diarrhea, fatigue, vomiting, and a continuing physical craving for the narcotic. The “cold turkey” method involves a not inconsiderable amount of pain and for this reason is dreaded and avoided by addicts.
Withdrawal from opiates alone does not usually involve seizures or a risk of death. However, withdrawal from certain other drugs (such as benzodiazepines, barbiturates and alcohol) can result in grand mal seizures and an increased risk of death without medical intervention.
A further method of drug detoxification has been the use of drugs such as sedatives (e.g., Valium (diaxepam) and other benzodiazepines), and analgesics (such as Darvon (propoxyphene, an opioid now banned by the FDA due to serious side effects) to attempt to reduce the patient's withdrawal symptoms from the offending drug.
Alcohol withdrawal may range in severity from mild tremors to convulsions, delirium tremens (DTs) and death.
Such symptoms typically begin to occur between 6 and 48 hours after heavy alcohol consumption decreases.
Various methods are used to wean an alcoholic from dependency on alcohol. Current approaches to alcoholism may include the administration of doses of alcohol to the patient (“alcohol loading”) to induce sickness, after which unpleasant confrontations are initiated to stimulate aversion to drinking.
There is also the electrode method of stimulus-response to create aversion. An alcoholic is given a drink and as the drink is raised to the lips he or she receives an uncomfortable electric stimulus in order to create an aversion to drinking.
In chemical variations of this method, the initially detoxed patient is given a daily dose of an acetaldehyde dehydrogenase inhibitor such as disulfiram (sold under the trade name “Antabus®”. After ingesting disulfiram when even small amounts of alcohol are consumed the patient may experience “hangover” symptoms such as flushing, throbbing in head and neck, throbbing headache, respiratory difficulty, nausea, copious vomiting, sweating, thirst, chest pain, palpitation, dyspnea, hyperventilation, tachycardia, hypotension, syncope, marked uneasiness, weakness, vertigo, blurred vision, and confusion. Severe reactions caused, for example, by ingestion of large amounts of alcohol may result in death.
Cold turkey detoxification from alcohol is discouraged at least in cases of moderate to severe alcohol withdrawal due to the risk of serious adverse reactions or death.
All the above approaches, and other s known to date, treat alcoholism or drug addiction as a problem to be treated essentially by preventing access to, and ingestion of, the offending substance. All these methods require anywhere from 72 hours to 21 days, with accompanying withdrawal symptoms, to accomplish detoxification, which is a slow and painful process. While sedatives can ease anxiety, none of these methods significantly reduce either withdrawal symptoms or the continuing craving for the addictive substance.
Although electrolyte balance is currently addressed in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal, only slight attention, if any, is directed toward a patient's overall nutritional health or lack thereof when withdrawing from addictive substances.
Libby, A. & Stone, I, THE HYPOASCORBEMIA-KWASHIORKOR APPROACH TO DRUG ADDICTION THERAPY: A PILOT STUDY, (Lecture Presented at the Western Regional Seminar of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine, San Francisco, Calif. (Jul. 16, 1977) presents theory and study data concerning the use of Vitamin C and the 20 essential amino acids in the treatment of addiction.
Libby, U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,515, describes a method and composition for detoxifying from addicts and alcoholics using about 10 g to about 15 g sodium ascorbate. The method comprises administering high oral doses of sodium ascorbate until the patient experiences diarrhea, and then switching to parenteral administration of the remainder of a critical total blocking dose of 28 to 35 grams of sodium ascorbate in a first day of treatment.
Lines, U.S. Pat. No. 8,044,096, discloses a method for treating addiction using a combination of Vitamin C, Vitamin B, and quercetin in specific weight ratios.
All patents, patent publications and non-patent publications cited herein are hereby individually incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. No admission is hereby made that any such reference is prior art to the present invention.
There is therefore need for a method for rapidly detoxifying drug and/or alcohol addicts that also effectively blocks withdrawal symptoms, reduces or eliminates the physical craving effect, and quickly returns the patient to a greater level of nutritional health, with a minimum of interruption in employment and other activities of daily life.